Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Conduit announced for Wii - A Third Party game with effort?

I have been screaming, you have been screaming and all Wii fans have been screaming for a Third Party game developer to put some effort into the graphics capabilities of the Wii. It looks like High Voltage Software is doing just that and building "The Conduit" from the ground up for Wii. Using a new high powered engine called "Quantum3" The Conduit will use special effects not yet seen in most- if not all Wii games released so far. IGN has the exclusive preview on their site and here is some bullet points from that article:

Special Effects The Conduit will feature:

Full 16-TEV stage material pipeline using up to eight texture sources and a host of innovative blend operations.

High Voltage's Eric Nofsinger, chief creative officer and Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder, had a few things to say about other Third Party developer's efforts on the Wii and more about The Conduit:

"We think it's a real shame that publishers and developers aren't taking advantage of the technical possibilities of the Wii platform. Most Wii games don't even look as good as the later day PS2 titles and that's a real slap in the face to consumers," seconds Kerry Ganofsky, CEO and founder, High Voltage Software. "We believe that third-party developers need to step up to the plate and deliver. The Wii platform is capable of a lot more than what consumers have seen so far. We're hoping to raise a new bar."

Nofsinger takes it a step farther. "Most of the games on the Wii look like crap. We want to change that, so we've invested heavily in our Wii tech over the past year. We have real-time normal mapping, reflection and refraction, post process full screen effects, real-time shadows, projected lights and textures, specularity and fresnel effects, emissive and iridescent materials, interactive water, morphing, and much more all running with a rock solid frame rate on the Wii. Our goal is to be the most technically innovative Wii developer on the planet."

"There is this pervasive and cyclical argument that Wii consumers don't want mature titles, when there aren't those types of products available to them. And even more frustrating is the claim that Wii consumers only care about great gameplay. Of course they care about gameplay, but we believe if given the choice, they would want great graphics as well. It's just a cop out," says Nofsinger. "With Conduit, we are trying to make a Wii game that looks like a 360 title."

Below is a tech demo for the "Quantom3" Engine running on the Wii in real-time:

Yes the game is a bit cliche with the Alien FPS gameplay, but really this is what the Wii needs. A hardcore Mature game with a high budget. Third Party Mature games haven't sold very well on the Wii because there isn't very many to choose from and the ones that the Wii does have are usually crappy PS2 ports (excluding RE4 and NMH which are great). Resident Evil 4 was a port and it has sold almost 2 million copies so far. If The Conduit gets a good publisher that can advertise! advertise! advertise! the heck out of it, then you know that the nearly 11 million Wii owners in the United States will be buying this game come this Holiday. For now, be happy that we have a Mature FPS coming to the Wii that has nothing to do with the PS2 - at all. If you look at the forum topics about this game, you will see that people aren't stupid and they can see when effort is being made and demand for The Conduit is already extremely high because of this.

The Sonic screens aren't really (ONM has not always been trust worthy) proven to be from the Wii version or not. Like I've said before I'm sure that the Wii version will look almost the same but I can't and will not say for sure until I see some actual screen shots and not screens that were taken at 1920x1080 resolution - something the Wii is not capable of producing.

The Conduit is definitely running off the Wii hardware and while the screens are of a low-res nature (most Wii games don't look too good in screen shots, Metroid Prime 3 anyone?, they do show a ton of promise for what the finished product will look like. If you compare Medal of Honor Heroes 2 to what The Conduit is doing graphically, there is no contest that The Conduit looks and will look many times better once it's finished. I'm extremely excited for this game and so should all Wii owners for that matter.

That's what I figured. As much as I am glad and excited to see a developer like High Voltage Software growing a spine about the state of Wii titles, I'm not too impressed by what I'm seeing. There is some serious aliasing issues that reminds me of Die Hard: Vendetta for the GameCube, and the environments and textures just look bland and uninspired. Ok, the screen resolution has little to do with the level of detail on the environments and textures, but the screenshots look like they were taken from an early build.

But since High Voltage Software doesn't have a publishing like Suda 51 did when they were making No More Heroes, these guys have a lot of time to sharpen the visuals and fix any gameplay issues.

Did you watch the Tech demo? That was very impressive with the bump-mapping and lighting effects. The Conduit shows a lot of promise and IGN was saying that we'll be seeing gameplay videos very soon, so don't be too hasty to pre-judge the visuals on screens that don't do the game justice. The effects they are pulling off with the "Quantom3" Engine are impressive regardless if there is aliasing or not (RE4 had some bad aliasing) and a big improvement from the tripe we've been seeing ever since the Wii was released.

the screens from nintendo mag are wii you bunch of retards there screens from the wii HANDS ON PREVIEW they didnt go hands on with a 360 game RETARDS there wii and official nintendo mag uk have never faked screens ever

your confusing the art and screens that ubisoft gave nintendo mag to print that had nothing to do with the magazine that was ubisoftred steel your refering to

tards that was ubisoft not the mag GET IT IF THERE SCREEN FAKERS HOW COME THEY ACCUALLY USE SCREEN GRABS NOT POLISHED UP PICTURES IN THERE MAG I SHOULD KNOW I HAVE EVERY ISSUE

even there galaxy review used jaggy frame grabs yet it still looked gougous official nintendo mag dosnt fake a dam thing

the screen shot in the magazine are from there day with the wii version AGAIN DUM NUTS AMERICAN RETARD FUK HEARDS THERE wii graphics

im sorry but the sony trolls and the americans who have never seen a issue of a uk magazine need to get of the sony pills

Oh come on man, don't make me delete the next comment you make if you continue with the insults. I'm not a Sony fan or Microsoft fan, I only need to see real-time screens or video of Sonic Unleashed running on the Wii. Do you really think those pics in ONM were real-time? Not a chance. I never said that the Wii version wouldn't look close to those screens but the resolution is way too high for those to be actual Wii in-game screens. Wii in-game screens will always look a little jaggy because of it only being in 480p. I'm not wrong, it's a fact that you need to deal with. I'm a believer in the Wii's true power but I know the system is not capable of 1920x1080 resolution.

I'm a Sonic Unleashed supporter but those screens can't be from the Wii version even if ONM says so. I imagine that the game will look almost the same (again I need to see it first!) on the Wii as those scans show but only in 480p which those pics are definitely not.

So Anonymous, you seem to be admitting to the fact that the UK mag used fake screens in the past because Ubisoft sent them fakes. It wasn't the UK mag's fault because they were fakes from SEGA.

I am just wondering where you think they got the Sonic screens from. Typically during events such as hands-on impression sit-downs with companies the company supplies the screens. So in other words what I am saying is that SEGA wants Sonic to look very good, hence the reason they may have supplied the UK mag fake screens.

I'm just saying there's a very good chance they aren't actual Wii screens.

the lantern swinging reflecting the stained glass on floor and walls is amazing and the shields as they turn the reflections are very good and i know what im on about this will hopefully have online multiplayer death matches and it ill be nintendos resistance type title

It's the first poster here.As someone who owns and plays FZero GX endlessly I can tell you with 99% certainty that this so called Hedgehog engine is actually a modified engine of that game.From the attraction to surfaces at high speed, to the very boost that we see under the tent.From the trailer, look carefully and we can see that Sonic is basically an FZero machine that jumps and is fixed to one plane of control.Sadly they have even reused some textures which give it away.Such as textures from the Green Plant stages as can be seen from the plants on the wall in the lower right picture only with a lighter green.In fact it looks better in FZero.However the game is not complete yet and Sega is one of only 5 confirmed companies that can push the Wii due to their work on the GC based Triforce arcade board where they made Fzero AX.This is why I have confidence that it will look better since this is just a fusion of low end FZero GX and Mario Galaxy graphics made to look a lot better than it really is due to anti aliasing.It still doesn't reach Rogue Leader for GC from a technical standpoint however it has better art direction just like RE4 had better art direction and looked better, even though technically it didn't even compare to the Factor5 game.Thank you for your time everyone.

aparantly one single picture of red steel in a magazines early just started days REFLEX THE WHORE ATATUDE MENTALLITY OF THE MAGAZINE AND ITS STAFF

THE AMERICANS NEED TO TRY OREDERING A COPY BEFORE THEY OPEN THERE PHAT MOUTHS

there has been just one fake screen in nintendo magazines history and now the magazine as a whole gets judged by folks 1000s of miles away across the atlantic ocean who have never red a copy of it ever

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm thats inteligent

just like all the retards stating all over the net sonic unleashed has sonic changing into a werewolf in it

About online play, at the end of the tech demo, the Network System part hints to online features, and by what it says, it can be a very well done online experience.On the graphics part, it looks astonishingly good. Thanks to developers like these, along with Factor 5, the Wii will finally show what it's able to do and hopefully, lazy devs will not just do PS2 ports ...

"Impressive...most impressive."I always knew the Wii hardware could produce 360/PS3-like graphics albeit at 480p. Indeed the Quantum3 Engine looks amazing. Now let's see what Factor 5's engine can do! I figured someone would eventually step up to the plate and show these lazy developers what the Wii can really do. Now, imagine 3rd & 4th wave games. Man, I'm as giddy as a school girl!

all them people who love to say wii does ps2 graphics there are games out now metroid,galaxy,mariokart,nomoreheroes,smashbros,even fifa 08 all have better if not alot better graphics than ps2 but you wait for titles such as disaster,monster hunter 3,conduit,factor 5 new game,prozect zero 4,sadness,not to mention the developers that are going to show off there new game engines once these new engines get licenced the wii will detroy competition think with the quantum 3 all games on 360/ps3 are achievable same graphics just at 480p with next gen controls dont forget the controls next gen not button mashing retro pads

oh not to forget there are big annoucments coming from the zelda team soon for wii at e3 2008 so watch out for that u seen what gamecube can do with twilight princess lets see what wii can do bet this game is going to blow everyone away also red steel 2 loads more games that we dont even know about cant *ucking wait

The early build looks all right; but nothing really special. Quite frankly; I don't have a lot of confidence in High Voltage since they have rarely created a quality game in any area let alone graphics. Until I have a final game; I am going to continue to believe that.

As for the ONM thing; I agree with MetalDave. The magazine is very suspect and they have let me down a lot more than Nintendo Power ever did. And after the Tales debacle; that is saying a lot.

Again; as I said before, the birdmen will get it. They won't have a choice in the matter. The Wii is selling too well not to force that hand. That's what most people who accuse us of being in denial are in denial. No sense of irony.

Hey Dave. Not that I approve that kid's tone (I don't), but it looks he might be right this time. I noticed the url in that site was something like:http://www.nwiizone.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/Sonic-Unleashed-Wii-01.jpgwell,if you take out the file name from it, and just go to the last directory, you can see tons of shots, and they're mostly 680x382, which could be either 640p rescaled to fit something, or just 680 scans from the mag, which would have screenshots taken at god knows what resolution. Anyway, just check out those pics, there's a lot of them on that site.

I think it's great that developers are just now tapping into the Wii's graphics potential. So... it's not that the Quantum3 Engine is that groundbreaking - yet - it's that not many devs never even bothered to push the Wii hardware at all...the tide is changing as far as development/attitude. The next wave of AAA titles should shut the naysayers up. I am sure when the Quantum3 Engine is completed & optimized we'll see that the Wii is not as underpowered as the critics believe...As a gamer/consumer, you have to admit, there's a level of satisfaction that the game you just bought is not only fun as hell, but the visuals are way cool. I just think this is a big step for the Nintendo fans and Wii owners. Of course, I am also looking forward to Factor 5's Engine as well.